South Korean steel giant Posco's proposal to set up a mega Special Economic Zone in Orissa with an investment of Rs 53,000 crore (Rs 530 billion) was among the 31 proposals cleared by the Board of Approvals on Thursday.

While the mega multi-product SEZ of Posco in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district was given in-principle nod along with 12 others, the board also gave final approval to 18 cases.

Posco's SEZ would be spread over an area of 1,601 hectares. With Thrusday's decision, the number of SEZs that have got final approval has gone up to 181, according to an official release issued in New Delhi.

Aware of the storm that land acquisition for SEZs has created, the release mentioned that state government representatives present at the BoA meeting confirmed all the zones cleared would come up either on waste land, barren land or single crop land.

Besides, six more SEZs, which have already got government approvals, were notified today taking the total number of zones that have been notified to 32.

The biggest SEZ that was notified on Thursday belonged to Essar Group at Hazira in Gujarat. The SEZ would be dedicated to engineering products and would be spread over an area of 247.5 hectares.

Zydus's 48.83 hectare pharma SEZ in Ahmedabad was also notified along with four IT SEZs.

This was the fifth meeting of the BoA since the SEZ Act came into force in February this year. The Board will hold three more meetings over the next ten days to clear pending applications for setting up SEZs.